An uneasy jealousy still prevailed in the midst of so many other alarms even in this palace, where sedition had already effected so many breaches.  “M. le Comte d’Artois will then become a hero,” said the queen ironically, who at one time was excessively fond of this young prince, but now hated him.  The king, on his part, feared that moral forfeiture with which he was menaced, under pretence of delivering the monarchy.  He knew not which to fear the most, his friends or his enemies.  Flight only, to the centre of a faithful army, could remove him from both these perils; but flight was also a peril.  If he succeeded, civil war might spring up, and the king had a horror of blood spilled in his defence; if it did not succeed, it would be imputed to him as a crime, and then who could say where the national fury would stop?  Forfeiture, captivity, death, might be the consequence of the slightest accident, or least indiscretion.  He was about to suspend by a slender thread his throne, his liberty, his life, and the lives a thousand times more dear to him—­those of his wife, his two children, and his sister.

His tormenting reflections were long and terrible, lasting for eight months, during which time he had no confidants but the queen, Madame Elizabeth, a few faithful servants within the palace, and the Marquis de Bouille without.

III.

The Marquis de Bouille, cousin of M. de La Fayette, was of a character totally different to that of the hero of Paris.  Severe and stern soldier, attached to the monarchy by principle, to the king by an almost religious devotion, his respect for his sovereign’s orders had alone prevented him from emigrating; he was one of the few general officers popular amongst the soldiers who had remained faithful to their duty amidst the storms and tempests of the last two years, and who, without openly declaring for or against these innovations, had yet striven to preserve that force which outlives, and not unfrequently supplies, the deficiency of all others,—­the force of discipline.  He had served with great distinction in America, in the colonies in India, and the authority of his character and name had not as yet lost their influence over the soldiery; the heroic repression of the famous outbreak amongst the troops at Nancy in the preceding August had greatly contributed to strengthen this authority; and he alone of all the French generals had re-obtained the supreme command, and had crushed insubordination.  The Assembly, alarmed in the midst of its triumphs by the seditions amongst the troops, had passed a vote of thanks to him as the saviour of his country.  La Fayette, who commanded the citizens, feared only this rival who commanded regiments, he therefore watched and flattered M. de Bouille.  He constantly proposed to him a coalition of their forces, of which they would be the commanders-in-chief, and by thus acting in concert secure at once the revolution and the monarchy.  M. de Bouille, who doubted the loyalty of La Fayette, replied with a cold and sarcastic civility, that but ill concealed his suspicions.  These two characters were incompatible,—­the one was the representative of modern patriotism, the other of ancient honour:  they could not harmonise.